In 1961, Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble, and literally a thousand other cartoon characters (see vide above), was in a terrible car crash that put him in a coma. Nothing could rouse him until his surgeon addressed him as Bugs Bunny. Of course, Blanc's response was: "What's up, Doc?" Here's a 2012 short episode of Radiolab where they interview the surgeon, a neuroscientist, and Mel Blanc's son, Noel.

"What's Up, Doc?" (Radiolab)

July 22, 1965: The Beau Brummels guest star as the Beau Brummelstones on The Flintstones. (Thanks, Andrea James!)]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/01/24/the-beau-brummelstones-on-th.html/feed 6 http://boingboing.net/2013/01/03/out-there-cast.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/03/out-there-cast.html#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:02:24 +0000 Jamie Frevele http://boingboing.net/?p=203848 The incredibly fun-sounding new animated series from IFC, Out There, has assembled a heck of a great cast to voice its characters.]]>

The incredibly fun-sounding new animated series from IFC, Out There, has assembled a heck of a great cast to voice its characters. In addition to series creator Ryan Quincy, who is providing the voice of the lead role of Chad Stevens, here is who else has come on board and who they'll be playing (via press release):

Out There chronicles the coming-of-age misadventures of socially awkward Chad (Ryan Quincy), his little brother Jay (Kate Micucci) and his best friend, Chris (Justin Roiland). Living in the small town of Holford, the boys wander its surreal, bleak landscape waiting out their last few years of adolescence. Along the way, viewers meet Chad’s conservative parents, Wayne (John DiMaggio) and Rose (Megan Mullally), as well as Chris’s single mother, Joanie (Pamela Adlon) and her disastrous boyfriend, Terry (Fred Armisen). They also meet the object of Chad’s affection, Sharla (Linda Cardellini).

I don't know about you, but where John DiMaggio and Pamela Adlon go, I'll follow, to say nothing of Armisen, Micucci, and Mullally. Here's to a brand new year of more silly, weird cartoons! Out There premieres on Friday, February 22 on IFC.

Generic cartoon ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/12/18/generic-gun-control-debate-car.html/feed 39 http://boingboing.net/2012/10/24/realistic-popeye.html http://boingboing.net/2012/10/24/realistic-popeye.html#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:15:25 +0000 Rob Beschizza http://boingboing.net/?p=189640 By Vancouver artist Lee Romao, who is currently working on an animated feature, Escape from Planet Earth. Prints are just $15 at his homepage.]]>

By Vancouver artist Lee Romao, who is currently working on an animated feature, Escape from Planet Earth. Prints are just $15 at his homepage. [via Joe Hill]]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/10/24/realistic-popeye.html/feed 27 http://boingboing.net/2012/10/10/yet-another-reason-why-i-love.html http://boingboing.net/2012/10/10/yet-another-reason-why-i-love.html#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:13:39 +0000 Mark Frauenfelder http://boingboing.net/?p=186492

Last night, my nine-year-old daughter Jane and I watched an episode of our favorite cartoon together: Gravity Falls. (See Jane's interview with the creator of Gravity Falls, Alex Hirsch, here.)

In the episode, the kids break into a derelict 7-Eleven style convenience store and find out that it's haunted. Inside the store, 12-year-old Mabel discovers a cache of powdered sugar candy called Smile Dip, which has strong psychedelic qualities. While she is drooling and glassy eyed, she goes on an incredible inner journey, as evidenced in the video snippet above.

At the end of the episode, some random-looking text appears on the screen for a second or so: RQZDUGV DRVKLPD! I paused the video and snapped a photo:

Jane reminded me that the beginning of every episode has a weird cartoony occult image that flashes on the screen for a fraction of the second. This image, also, contains random-looking text: VWDQ LV QRW ZKDW KH VHHPV

Jane and I used the same substitution cipher to attempt to decode the text from the episode we saw last night. We came up with: ONWARDS AOSHIMA!

"That doesn't seem right," I told Jane. But Jane said, "No! That's what Mabel says when she's riding the dolphin." She was right!

What does "Onwards Aoshima" mean? Google revealed that a lot of people have already cracked the cryptogram, and that every episode of Gravity Falls has a cryptogram at the end of it. but I haven't come across any explanation of what the term means. Aoshima is an island in Japan, but what does that have to do with Gravity Falls? The mystery deepens!

Gravity Falls is a thoroughly enjoyable cartoon. These little puzzles that are sprinkled throughout each episode take it to another level. I love this show.

Gravity Falls on The Disney Channel

Ronaldthecock produced this Black Mesa/Michigan J Frog mashup as part of a machinima challenge on steamcommunity.com:

Let's have another Theme week. Starting sunday September 16th and running through sunday September 23rd, will be Critter week. in honor of the release of Black Mesa this friday, Make Videos of headcrabs, bullsquids, antlions, alien swarm monsters, or whatever creepy crawly you want. Put "OSFM critter week" in the Video description and post it here. There are a couple people working on rigs to make animating monsters like headcrabs easier, so keep an eye out and I'll post them here.

CRITTER WEEK! :: Open Source Filmmaker: (via JWZ) ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/09/17/michigan-j-frog-meets-black-me.html/feed 3 http://boingboing.net/2012/09/11/upcoming-episode-of-gravit.html http://boingboing.net/2012/09/11/upcoming-episode-of-gravit.html#comments Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:48:24 +0000 Mark Frauenfelder http://boingboing.net/?p=180455 Video Link] My daughter and I are hooked on Gravity Falls, a quirky new cartoon series on Disney about about the goings-on in an occult curio shack in the Pacific Northwest (see Jane's interview with show creator Alex Hirsch here).]]>
[Video Link] My daughter and I are hooked on Gravity Falls, a quirky new cartoon series on Disney about about the goings-on in an occult curio shack in the Pacific Northwest (see Jane's interview with show creator Alex Hirsch here). Now David and his son are hooked, too!

The next episode, which airs Friday, September 14, features Street Fighter style animation by the amazing pixel artist Paul Robertson (some of his art is NSFW).

Here's another clip:

Gravity Falls on The Disney Channel

She ended up watching The Powerpuff Girls the whole time on the plane instead, but when we got home we watched Gravity Falls together and we loved it. It's about a brother and sister (Dipper and Mabel) who go to the Pacific Northwest to spend the summer with their "Grunkle Stan," a fez-wearing proprietor of "The Mystery Shack," which trades in occult items, crpytozoological specimens, and other Fortean curiosities. The woods surrounding the Mystery Shack are populated by bigfoots and jackalopes, while the town's human residents are even stranger.

Intrigued, we got in touch with the creator of Gravity Falls, Alex Hirsch, and Jane asked him a few questions:

What is that hat Grunkle Stan wears? Does he ever take it off?
Like all cool people, Stan wears a fez pretty much constantly. According to legend, it gives him special powers, like the ability to cover his bald spot, and a place to hide his parking tickets. He bestows the fez upon Mabel in a future episode, and she learns of its awesome responsibility...

What are the weird symbols that you can see for a second after the theme music at the start of the show?
I have no idea what you're talking about.

In one of the first episodes Mabel got a grappling hook. Will she use it in an upcoming episode?
Trust me -- Whenever Mabel is offscreen, she's using her grappling hook, usually in ways not intended by its user manual. (It doesn't make a great toothbrush) The grappling hook will return later this season, and it will be worth the wait!

Which episode was the most fun for you to make and why? We recently did an episode featuring an old-school arcade game character who enters Gravity Falls. It was awesomely animated by pixel animation genius Paul Robertson, who was lots of fun to collaborate with. Fans of Street Fighter and seeing Dipper get roundhouse kicked in the face will not be disappointed!

There's a new episode go Gravity Falls airing tomorrow! Here are the details:

Gravity Falls: "Time Traveler's Pig" - When Dipper wishes he could go back in time and undo a mistake he made, he discovers there is a time machine that can help him do just that. Meanwhile, it's love at first sight for Mabel when she wins a pet pig at the fair, in a new episode of "Gravity Falls," premiering Friday, August 24 (9:30 - 10:00 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney Channel.

Also airing tomorrow on the Disney Channel: a new episode of Phineas and Ferb, another favorite in our house.

Gravity Falls | Disney Channel

Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure there is zero chance of these actually happening.

The Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse

Rather than go into the merits of how perfect this would be, I'll just go ahead and write a pitch: Brock Samson is a huge fan of Dethklok, but when he finally has the chance to go to one of their epic concerts, he has to bring the boys -- and Dermott -- with him. And, as it turns out, The Monarch is trying to bribe Charles Foster Ofdensen to divulge information about Dr. Girlfriend's past dalliances with one (or more) of the band members. If he doesn't get the truth, The Monarch will blow the concert venue to kingdom come, so Brock has to stop it while the boys get to hang out with Dethklok. In the end, everyone at the concert dies because of some mechanical malfunction caused by H.E.L.P.E.R. Boom -- YUMMY.

Adventure Time and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Both of these shows are clever and trippy enough for us "big kids," and if they joined forces, it would be the animated equivalent of dissolving Pop Rocks in Mountain Dew. Which sounds gross, and I wouldn't touch the stuff, but I would look at it! I'm probably not the only one who would stop everything to watch the Ponies infiltrate the Land of Ooo while Princess Celestia did science experiments with Princess Bubblegum in the Candy Kingdom. But the biggest selling point for an Adventure Time-MLP mashup would be how the fantastical tones of both could allow for either show to take on either animation style. Even in the same episode. If that isn't a recipe for delightful, colorful, and whimsical fun, then I don't know what is.

American Dad and The Boondocks

File this one under "Won't Happen," but I'd so much rather watch this than The Cleveland Show. Especially if it's a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? parody with Hayley Smith bringing home Thugnificent while Huey hacks into the CIA and prevents World War III. What could be so fun about these two shows meeting each other is that if one show took on the style of the other, it would make for such starkly different shows -- The Boondocks as a Seth MacFarlane show would be goofy and irreverent. American Dad as an Aaron McGruder show would be fierce. Visually, turning the Boondocks characters into cuddly-looking MacFarlane characters would be a really insane contrast to the badass anime-style characters on McGruder's show.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (or Whatever) and Squidbillies

Here is a crossover that I think is totally possible. Not only do they often air right next to each other on Adult Swim, but similarly to how H. Jon Benjamin ties Archer and Bob's Burgers together, they share a voiceover actor: Dana Snyder, who voices Master Shake and Granny Cuyler. Frylock would shoot the shit with Dan Halen. Meatwad and Rusty would get into mischief and learn important life lessons from each other while burning something to the ground. But mostly, the culture clash between suburban New Jersey and the Deepest Appalachian South would be a goldmine of material. And I'd really like to see Carl have a near-death experience and meet Squid Jesus.

Black Dynamite and The Clone Wars

This will never happen. The only thing holding this one together is that they both appear on Cartoon Network, but it will still never happen -- as much as it kind of has to. I defy you to find me one person who wouldn't like to see Black Dynamite battle Darth Maul and receive wise soundbites from Yoda in CG animation. Plus, Star Wars is originally from the 1970s, which is Black Dynamite's universe, so they're practically begging for a crossover. (Just hear me out!) Okay, so The Clone Wars is a kids' show, and Black Dynamite is profoundly not. But how could this be anything less than amazing? Something has to make this happen, somehow!

I enjoyed this short animation called "Ballad of Poisonberry Pete," a western starring anthropomorphic pies and cakes. It's a film by Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill, and Uri Lotan and was presented at Cartoon Brew's 3rd Student Animation Festival.

Making of "Ballad of Poisonberry Pete"

My introduction to Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury happened around the age of 8, when I discovered my father's anthology collections. (I was extraordinarily up on early 1970s pop culture for a late 1980s grade schooler.) Reading the new strip and the daily archives is still part of my morning routine. But, given that I was born in 1981, I don't always get all the references. Sometimes, that leads me to discover weird bits pop history.

For instance, the strip above ran on July 19, 1977. My first response this morning, "What the hell is Laetrile?" I mean, it's Duke, so I assumed it was a drug. But I wasn't expecting it to turn out to be a quack cancer treatment, the promotion of which led to a strange bedfellows situation where alt-med proponents joined forces with the John Birch Society to fight the federal government for the right to sell desperate cancer patients a potentially dangerous treatment that had never been tested for effectiveness or safety.

Laetrile is basically the brand name of amygdalin, a compound derived from bitter almonds, or from the pits of apricots and black cherries. It's sometimes called "Vitamin B17", although it's not a vitamin. Beginning in the 1950s, the father-son team of Dr. Ernst T. Krebs and Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. (The latter's only claim to a medical license was a "doctor of science" degree bestowed on him honorarily by an unaccredited Bible college) began marketing Laetrile as a treatment for cancer.

The downside to Laetrile is that it can break down and turn into cyanide in the presence of stomach chemicals. Also, it doesn't actually seem to do anything to cure or slow the progress of cancer. The upside to Laetrile is that selling it was extremely lucrative.

John Richardson was a general practitioner who began practice in the San Francisco Bay area in 1954. In 1971, after discussions with Krebs, Jr., he decided to become a cancer specialist. He had not encountered overwhelming success as a general practitioner. His 1972 income tax return revealed that he had grossed $88,000 in his medical practice, leaving a net of only $10,400 taxable income.

Richardson's practice boomed as a result of his newly found status as a cancer "expert." He states that "Our office soon was filled with faces we had never seen before—hopeful faces of men and women who had been abandoned by orthodox medicine as hopeless or "terminal" cases." In 1974, he reported that his medical practice had grossed $783,000, with a net income of $172,981. By charging patients $2,000 for a course of Laetrile, Richardson managed to increase his net income 17-fold in just two years. According to his income tax returns, Richardson grossed $2.8 million dollars from his Laetrile practice between January 1973 and March 1976. The actual amount of money he received may have even been higher. In Laetrile Case Histories, he claimed to have treated 4,000 patients, with an average charge of $2,500 per patient. Culbert states that by 1976 Richardson had treated 6,000 patients. If these figures are correct, Richardson would have grossed between $10 and $15 million dollars during this time.

Richardson's practice changed significantly after he began treating cancer patients with Laetrile. He also began treating what he termed "pre-clinical syndrome" patients with Laetrile. These were patients with no identifiable tumor or lesion who complained of feelings of "impending doom, malaise, unexplained or vague pains, headaches, bowel changes, loss of appetite, loss of energy, and depression." According to Richardson, cancer patients reported a reduction in pain, an improved appetite, return of strength, and an improved mental outlook. In addition, high blood pressure returned to normal.

In spite of these "dramatic improvements," Richardson admitted that most of his cancer patients died.

Cases like this one led to raids and prosecutions, as state and federal government authorities started cracking down on doctors for selling the bogus treatment. Richardson, for instance, was indicted in 1976.

Proponents fought back. Laetrile ended up in the Supreme Court in 1979—where justices rejected the idea that treatments given to terminally ill patients should be exempt from FDA regulation. And in 1977, when this Doonesbury comic came out, Laetrile was the subject of a Congressional hearing.

The full history is pretty amazing. Public interest in Laetrile petered off in the 1980s, after a National Cancer Institute study found no evidence that it worked (and did find evidence of cyanide poisoning in patients using it), and after actor Steve McQueen infamously used Laetrile to treat his cancer ... and then died. But there are still people pushing it. Because of that, it's worth noting that meta-reviews of research into Laetrile treatments for cancer, conducted in 2006 and again in 2011, still say the stuff doesn't work and that it's potentially dangerous.

Read the Quackwatch history of Laetrile, which is quoted above.

Read Wikipedia's entry on Laetrile, which refers to it as "a canonical example of quackery" in the medical literature.

Read the abstract for the 2011 review of research into Laetrile as a treatment for cancer.

Read The American Cancer Society's summary of the history and evidence (or, rather, lack thereof) behind Laetrile

I really enjoy Gweek, especially your recommendations section. I’d like to offer a recommendation of my own, the Jonny Quest TV show. Jonny Quest was a half-hour prime time cartoon that came out in the early ‘60s, produced by Hanna-Barbera. Unfortunately, like so many great shows, it ran for just one season, but you can see them all in a DVD box set, iTunes, or Amazon Instant Video.

Jonny Quest is about the adventures of an 11 year old boy (Jonny), who travels around the world with his father, Dr. Benton Quest, a top government scientist assigned to solve action mysteries and defuse threats perpetrated by the evil Dr. Zin. The show is aimed at boys Jonny’s age, and it has the whole package: high-tech gadgets, villains, guns, ferocious animals, and even seductresses. There are great sidekicks too -- Dr. Quest’s commando bodyguard, Race Bannon, Jonny’s Indian friend Hadji, and their feisty bulldog Bandit. Each episode takes the Quest crew somewhere exotic and exciting, from the Egyptian pyramids to the South American Andes and even out to sea. They face every challenge imaginable: flying robots, pirates, and giant genetically engineered lizards. Naturally the Quests and their team always come out victorious and unscathed.

The show has some highlights that aren’t part of the story lines, as well. For one thing, the political incorrectness of the early 1960s really shines through. The Quests unapologetically gun down bad guys, especially troublesome natives and commies, along with any menacing animals they run into. Don’t worry though, it’s so over-the-top it’s funny rather than offensive. And the animation is wonderful. It’s bold, sharply defined, and quite realistic, bringing you into the action much more than typical kids’ style cartoons of the time, flying you by the seat of your pants.

Any aficionado of Gweek is sure to enjoy this series.

Jonny Quest - The Complete First Season

Back in 2003 I was asked by Warner Bros (who owns Hanna Barbera) to come up with my take on those great characters. I could choose from Atom Ant, Dastardly and Muttley, The Flintstones, The Herculoids, Hong Kong Phooey, Huckleberry Hound, Jabberjaw, The Jetsons, Josie and the Pussycats, Magilla Gorilla, Penelope Pitstop, Peter Potamus, Scooby-Doo, Secret Squirrel, Top Cat, Wacky Racers, Yogi Bear and a million more for my sketches. Out of all of those, they would pick the ones to turn into full color paintings. The plan was to use the images for merchandising, but sadly (for me at least) nothing ever came of it. I wish it had caught on, 'cause I could've keep drawing these guys all day long (and the paychecks weren't bad either)!

SoundWorks Collection: Brave

Stussy x John K. from Stussy on Vimeo.
My pal John Kricfalusi (creator of Ren & Stimpy) made an animated commercial for his T-shirt designs that Stussy released today. I love John's animation work. I asked John to write a bit about the making of the commercial and here's what he had to say:

A couple years ago Stussy put out a bunch of shirts featuring Marvel superheroes.

Stussy's art director Adam Jay Weissman cooked up the idea and asked some non-Marvel artists to do their interpretations of their favorite characters. I picked Crystal and Johnny Storm.

Then last year Adam asked me to design 4 new shirts using my own characters and to redesign their mascot, the Stussy Rat. Once the designs were done they thought it would be fun if I animated a commercial for it. I suggested we make it a story first and include the commercial within and they said yes. I always liked how early television and radio used the stars of their shows to perform the ads for their sponsors and I have been pushing this idea online for a few years now. Finally someone let me do it!

It stars Bobby Bigloaf, a nerdy kid who dreams of one day growing up to be the greatest comic book writer in the world, and Slab N Ernie, the neighborhood bullies.

I used my crack crew of John Kedzie, Sarah Harkey, Geneva Hodgson, Ben Anders, David De Rooij, Sandra Rivas and Amir Avni to make the cartoon.

I drew the storyboards on paper and animated the cartoon using Toonboom's Animate program.

He's scruffy, doesn't own a suit, and lives in Portland. He expresses withering contempt at politicians, mainstream media, and what he views as hypocrisy. He's never made more than $15,000 a year from his cartoons, and supplements that income with illustration, freelance editorial jobs, and, possibly, blood plasma—at least he did in college; he has the scar to prove it.

The 28-year-old Bors was thus a bit surprised this year, and occasionally nonplussed, when he won the Herblock Prize for "excellence in editorial cartooning," was a finalist (with Oregonian newspaper staffer Jack Ohman) for the Pulitzer Prize, and received a Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award.

Jesus Christ, Matt, when did you fucking sell out?

He didn't. The establishment came to him after a stellar run of cartoons in 2011, in which he sent up the pope, climate deniers, Ariana Huffington, the death of newspapers, Mitt Romney, marriage inequality, and our Kenyan-born, American-citizen killing, war-loving, extrajudicial president (who we love dearly and are praying, to all our gods and Richard Dawkins, gets re-elected). His style is more in the mold of the daily strip cartoonist, like a Doonesbury, common among alt political artists, and that makes it seem benign even while he jabs out with wounding satire. Bors doesn't hesitate to switch from jokes or bitter irony to a documentary strip, such as one about Portland residents, his trip to Haiti in 2011 (he went with two other cartoonists, unembedded, to Afghanistan in 2010), or insights from his work as an editor at the Cartoon Movement site.

His most significant strip in 2011 arose from a mild disgust at the imaginative limitations of most cartoons following the death of Steve Jobs. Countless panels showed Jobs at the pearly gates with St. Peter holding an iPad. Bors response was a five-panel outing in which St. Peter welcomes him to the "iCloud" and whips out an iPad. Jobs notes flatly that he's a Buddhist, and wants some respect. So St. Peter swipes a gesture on the iPad, and the final panel has the reincarnated Apple chief as a Chinese Foxconn worker.

The Herbert Block Foundation called out the Jobs cartoon in its award citation. The prize came with a hefty trophy and a $15,000 (after taxes) check, an awards ceremony at which Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau delivered a lecture on his career, and a fancy reception in a gloriously decorated room at the Library of Congress's Jefferson Building. Bors was the first alt cartoonist to get the award, given since 2004, although fellow online scribbler Matt Wuerker of Politico (this year's Pulitzer recipient) got the nod in 2010. Matt's co-Portlandian and friend, Jen Sorensen (Slowpoke Comics), was named the finalist for the award, and received a post-tax $5,000. She, too, appears in weeklies and online, but was unable to attend.

It might seem peculiar for a foundation associated with the Washington Post's long-running cartoonist to bestow accolades on someone so far outside the tradition set by the Post and other papers. But the Post's editorialist didn't dispense pabulum. Herbert Block was a demon with a paycheck, back in the day that newspapers remembered people might purchase their fishwrappers specifically for strong opinion presented graphically. He advocated against racism, coined the term "McCarthyism", railed against Nixon, and showed the Supreme Court stealing the Bush-Gore election. Block, active for 72 years, produced 14,000 cartoons for the Post, from 1946 until his death in 2001. Bors and Block actually have a lot in common, despite form (Block used the convention of labeling items in a cartoon with terms like "the economy" and "middle-class voters") and source of income. The truth is there to be told in a way that forces people to cope with its reality, whether in Herblock's or Bors' distinctive style.

Matt is a Twitter buddy, and he even adapted a cartoon (with permission and credit) from one of my tweets ("U.S. out of lady parts"). That's an honor of the highest order. After the Jobs cartoon appeared, I immediately asked Bors if I could buy it; it's sitting in a flat mailer behind me waiting to be framed. When the news came out that Matt had won the Herblock Award, I felt compelled to go as a long-time cartoon fan, and a supporter of his. Despite my living in Seattle and he in Portland, we met in D.C. for the first time, not unusual in our fast-paced 21st century hovercar and jetpack lifestyle. (I had some interviews and tourism to conduct in D.C., too, so the timing made sense.)

The audience at the awards was mostly gray to very gray, with a few people dressed in a fashion that made it clear that they were cartoonists (nice hat, Cavna), and not, say, the founding chairman of the Kennedy Center (also in attendance). The audience laughed long and loud at Matt's jokes, save one at Huffington Post's expense. Matt noted that Politico had won this year's Pulitzer for editorial cartooning by his colleague Wuerker, and the Huffington Post had received a Pulitzer for reprinting Wuerker's cartoons without permission. That provoked low, throaty, growly laughter. In deference to the audience, Matt told me he cut a joke about thanking the vagina haters for providing so much material, being assured that it wouldn't go over well. His talk was captured on video and is already online. (Trudeau's amusing and informative talk is also up; it has nothing to do with Matt, as Trudeau recounts the history of his strip. Make sure and watch Trudeau's answer about Wounded Warriors at the end if you want to see where his passion lies.)

Herbert Block's foundation is run by his old pals, and Matt said over coffee the night after the award that he was told openly and politely by board members that they really didn't know his stuff, although the board is passionate about strong opinion and social issues. But the foundation is smart, and picks contemporary peers that know the lay of the land. (Last year's Herblock Award winner Tom Toles was on the panel, along with the Philadelphia Daily News's Pulitzer-prize winning Signe Wilkinson, and Jenny Robb, a cartoon collection curator from Ohio State University.)

Political cartoons haven't gone out of style, but the ability to make a living while creating them has largely eroded in this country. As Matt noted in his speech, dictatorships don't crush people's hands because the cartoons they drew have no impact. But the high-profit-margin structure that allowed newspapers both the funds and the independence to compete to hire editorial cartoonists is now long past. Matt is on the board of the editorial cartoonists' association, and tells me that at the peak of opinion comics, at least 1,000 illustrators were employed in the U.S.; the number might even have been as high as 2,000. There are now 60 full-time staffers in that role.

Both the alt-weekly comic artists and their mainstream comrades have been looking for a path out of the darkness. Web sites, besides Politico, don't have regular cartoonists. Matt is one of several artists now syndicated at Daily Kos, where Dan Perkins ("Tom Tomorrow" of This Modern World) edits, appears, and gathers Matt, Wuerker, Sorensen, friend of Boing Boing's Ruben Bolling ("Tom the Dancing Bug"), and others. But all of them complain that editorial sites that commission original print work seem to forget about the popularity of political cartooning.

Matt estimates his Jobs cartoon was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, with many of those even at his own Web site. Editorial cartoonists know how to create memes and the power in images that lampoon the mighty. The disconnect between the audience for such work and the organizations that could fund it seems huge. I congratulate Matt on receiving recognition for his craft, but he and his colleagues know all too well that the hard work of figuring out how to keep at it continues, every day.

Mental Floss's Rob Lammle has researched an admirably thorough history of The Animaniacs, one of my all-time favorite cartoons.

Of the Warners, the voice of Wakko was the most difficult to cast. During auditions, the producers said they were looking for “wacky,” so all the actors delivered a voice that was over-the-top crazy, but none were the right fit. On the last day of auditions, Ruegger brought his 1990 Almanac to the office, hoping to find some inspiration that might shake things up. Many wacky Wakko’s later, they still didn’t have the right voice. So during their last appointment of the morning, with voice actor Jess Harnell, Ruegger opened the almanac to a list of celebrities and asked Harnell to do his best impression of Elvis, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, and other notable names. When the Beatles came up, Harnell proceeded to do every one of the Fab Four so well you could actually tell which individual band member he was mimicking at the moment. However, it was Harnell’s Ringo that struck a chord with the producers, so after a few tweaks, that became the voice of Wakko.

To promote Animaniacs before the show’s premiere, a giant balloon in the shape of Yakko was placed on top of the water tower on the Warner Bros. lot. Unfortunately, no one told Bob Daley, who ran the studio. When he pulled into work that morning, he thought someone had put a bad Mickey Mouse balloon on the tower and ordered it removed. The inflatable Yakko was in place for less than 12 hours, and then popped shortly after he came down. Writer Paul Rugg was able to snap a photo to prove it happened.

After the balloon incident, Daley worked to ensure no one else would mistake the Warners for Mickey. Daley decided that Yakko and Wakko were too smooth and rounded. So while he watched, he had Ruegger add side whiskers to the drawings, which he felt would prevent confusion – and potential legal action. Ruegger and Warner Bros. Animation president Jean MacCurdy had to rush back to the animation studio with the changes, because the cartoon was already being drawn, with some segments in the can. You can see the Before Whiskers and After Whiskers comparison below:

Way More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Animaniacs ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/history-of-the-animaniacs.html/feed 16 http://boingboing.net/2012/03/12/whats-opera-doc-the-mashup.html http://boingboing.net/2012/03/12/whats-opera-doc-the-mashup.html#comments Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:11:23 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=148661 Whats Opera, Doc?]]>

djBC, the archduke of mashup, has created a video to accompany his 2005 "wemix" of the classic Chuck Jones 1957 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Opera, Doc?"

Whats Opera, Doc? (dj BC Wemix) (Thanks, djBC!)]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/03/12/whats-opera-doc-the-mashup.html/feed 23 http://boingboing.net/2012/01/25/popeye-meets-wilco-in-hand-dra.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/25/popeye-meets-wilco-in-hand-dra.html#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:51:42 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=140620 Video Link] The Wilco track "Dawned On Me" re-imagined as a classic, early-era Popeye cartoon. The song is from the band's Grammy-nominated 2011 album, "The Whole Love." They're on tour now, and should not be missed, as they are one of the greatest live acts on the planet.]]>

[Video Link] The Wilco track "Dawned On Me" re-imagined as a classic, early-era Popeye cartoon. The song is from the band's Grammy-nominated 2011 album, "The Whole Love." They're on tour now, and should not be missed, as they are one of the greatest live acts on the planet. The animation is a collaboration with King Features, and is "the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in more than 30 years." Directed by Darren Romanelli. Best url ever: wilcospinach.com.

A little more about how the video came to be, below, from Wilco and Romanelli...

This collaboration between American icons is one of the first music videos Wilco has released since 1999 and it presents the band to the masses in a fresh, new way: as animated images, side-by-side with Popeye and his friends Olive Oyl, Swee’ Pea, Wimpy and Bluto.

As one of the earliest animated characters, introduced in 1933 by Fleischer Studios, Popeye has become one of the most enduring and iconic cartoon characters of all time and is forever entwined in the evolution of animation. The music video marks the first new Popeye cartoon since “Popeye’s Voygage: The Quest for Pappy,” the 3-D CGI primetime TV special and deluxe DVD release produced by King Features Syndicate for Popeye’s 75th Anniversary in 2004. In what has become a primarily digital world, this new video marks the first hand-drawn, frame-by-frame rendering for Popeye cell animation since the Popeye and Son series from 1987.

This certainly isn’t Popeye’s first foray into love territory: the Sailor Man first met his “goil,” Olive Oyl, in Elzie Crisler Seagar’s popular Thimble Theatre comic strip in the 1930s and their legendary love only grew and captivated the imagination of fans all over the world. The couple even made People Magazine’s list of the Greatest Love Stories of the 20th Century.

(thanks, Tara McGinley, and Darren Romanelli!)]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/01/25/popeye-meets-wilco-in-hand-dra.html/feed 26 http://boingboing.net/2012/01/09/gathering-of-the-bronies.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/09/gathering-of-the-bronies.html#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:25:09 +0000 Rob Beschizza http://boingboing.net/?p=137924 The Awl, Kase Wickman covers the first major Brony convention, an "explosion of wild color ... the glitter, the rainbows, the homemade pony-mane hooded sweatshirts, all of it bright and sparkly enough to send any pop culture-aware preteen princess into spasms of jealousy."]]> The Awl, Kase Wickman covers the first major Brony convention, an "explosion of wild color ... the glitter, the rainbows, the homemade pony-mane hooded sweatshirts, all of it bright and sparkly enough to send any pop culture-aware preteen princess into spasms of jealousy."]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/01/09/gathering-of-the-bronies.html/feed 11 http://boingboing.net/2011/12/02/scooby-doo-is-veggie-tales-for.html http://boingboing.net/2011/12/02/scooby-doo-is-veggie-tales-for.html#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:46:21 +0000 Maggie Koerth-Baker http://boingboing.net/?p=132697 At Comics Alliance, Chris Sims makes such a good argument that I can only gape and think, "Oh my god, why had I never noticed this before?"

Because that's the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode aren't monsters, they're liars.

At Comics Alliance, Chris Sims makes such a good argument that I can only gape and think, "Oh my god, why had I never noticed this before?"

Because that's the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode aren't monsters, they're liars.

I can't imagine how scandalized those critics who were relieved to have something that was mild enough to not excite their kids would've been if they'd stopped for a second and realized what was actually going on. The very first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it's up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isn't through supernatural powers, or even through fighting. The way that you win is by doing the most dangerous thing that any person being lied to by someone in power can do: You think.

But it's not just that the crooks in Scooby-Doo are liars; nobody ever shows up to bilk someone out of their life savings by pretending to be a Nigerian prince or something. It's always phantasms and Frankensteins, and there's a very good reason for that. The bad guys in Scooby-Doo prey on superstition, because that's the one thing that an otherwise rational person doesn't really think through. It's based on belief, not evidence, which is a crucial element for the show. If, for example, someone knocks on your door and claims to be a police officer, you're going to want to see a badge because that's the tangible evidence that you've come to expect to prove their claim. If, however, you hold the belief that the old run-down theater has a phantom in the basement, then the existence of that phantom himself -- or at least a reasonably convincing costume -- is all the evidence that you need to believe that you were right all along. The bad guys are just reinforcing a belief that the other characters already have, and that they don't need any evidence before because it's based in superstition, not reason.

... To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, Scooby Doo has value not because it shows us that there are monsters, but because it shows us that those monsters are just the products of evil people who want to make us too afraid to see through their lies, and goes a step further by giving us a blueprint that shows exactly how to defeat them.

Via Chad Towle

]]>